PROVIDENCE, R.I. – It’s feeling like déjà vu all over again for Providence College at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.
The Friars played an NCAA East Regional game in their hometown for the third time in five years Saturday afternoon, starting down the same road – being a No. 4 seed and one of the last teams into the 16-team field – as they took to winning the national title in 2015.
Say what you want about it being a “home” game and being “rewarded” as a bottom seed playing mere miles from campus, but the Friars showed their battle-back spirit once again and ousted top-seeded Minnesota State from the tournament with a 6-3 win after being eliminated from Hockey East title contention themselves two weeks ago against Boston College.
“When I went into the locker room after the BC series, it wasn’t a great feeling,” said Providence head coach Nate Leaman, whose team is now 23-11-6 on the season. “But at the end of the day, getting into the NCAA tournament is really about your body of work. We challenged ourselves on the road. … I think it’s not failure, it’s growing. We grew throughout the year and we’re playing some really good hockey.”
That attitude is a major key to surviving and advancing at this time of year, though it sure didn’t look like it would be Providence’s day at the outset. The Mavericks built a three-goal lead just 11:08 into the game before the hometown team scored six unanswered goal to clinch the win.
Providence benefited from a five-minute major penalty that took second-year Mankato defenseman Connor Mackey out of the game midway through the final frame, ultimately scoring two of its three goals within a 58-second span on the power play that followed.
Despite running away at the end, it was yet another example of why the Friars are a tough team to beat. They are never out of a game and, though it turned into a rather unexpected shootout, put their talent at every position to work in a do-or-die situation.
“We’ve been in that situation before this year, and our team is very good at coming back from deficits like that,” said junior defenseman Jacob Bryson, who is a Buffalo Sabres draft pick and one of nine players on the Friar roster with tie to a National Hockey League team. That marks leads all teams that qualified for the national tournament. “We’ve had good second and third periods, and tonight was another great showing of that.
“I think we stayed on them hard and they were hard to play against the whole game, but we just got a few bounces and our power play came through.”
The come-from-behind situation has been commonplace for the Friars, especially late in the season en route to a second-place finish in the Hockey East standings. Leaman’s club faced deficits in six of its last seven games, winning four of those and tying another.
Senior goaltender Hayden Hawkey certainly breeds confidence even as the Friars faced the daunting early deficit. Shortly after the Minnesota State lead was cut to 3-1, Hawkey made two of his best stops on fourth-liner Jared Spooner while sprawling outside of the crease.
For only the sixth time this season, the Canadiens draft pick and Parker, Colo., native was counted on to make 30 or more saves, finishing the night with 31. That is a testament, too, to a great defense that has been the second-best in Hockey East this season, but Leaman and his players know what the goalie’s uber-consistent play does for the team.
“Even to get us in the locker room only down by two (goals) made a pretty big statement,” Leaman said. “We got pretty loose after they went up 3-0, and I thought he made some big saves in the second and the third as well. He doesn’t have the all-time wins record at our school for nothing; it’s not an accident. He’s a great goalie and he held us in and gave us a chance.”
During the nightcap, Northeastern was not so fortunate in playing the come-from-behind game as it fell into a four-goal hole and never recovered before suffering a 5-1 defeat, putting an abrupt end to its winningest season in program history at 27-11-1.
The result for the Hockey East champion Huskies, who got a late second-period goal from Canton, Mass., native Liam Pecararo for their only scoring, sets up a Sunday regional final between Providence and Cornell teams that strive to play similar defensive styles.
While Saturday wasn’t the “2-1 grind it out” game that Leaman predicted, such a game would not be out of the question when the trip to the Frozen Four is put on the line on Sunday. Cornell coach Mike Schafer sees the similarities as well, looking forward to the first meeting between the Hockey East and ECAC foes since the 2015 Florida College Classic.
“We have a good idea what they want to do,” Schafer said of the Friars. “They’re a pretty simple, hard-working team. Very basic in the sense of not going to try to trick you, but they’re just going to try to beat you. It should be fun.”
